OSLO, Norway, March 3, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- Norway is co-sponsor of the resolution unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council today to impose sanctions on individuals in South Sudan. ‘After nearly 15 months of hostilities, it is a tragedy for the people of South Sudan that the parties to the conflict are not willing to pursue peace. […]

BERLIN, Germany, March 3, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- A Federal Foreign Office spokesperson issued the following statement in Berlin today (3 March 2015) in response to the Malian Government and some of the armed groups signing a peace agreement in Algiers on 1 March: The signing of this peace agreement represents a significant step towards las […]

MOGADISHU, Somalia, March 3, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- Joint statement by the UN and AU envoys to Somalia Speaking at a high level panel discussion on sexual violence in Somalia the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), Nicholas Kay and the Special Representative of the AU Commission Chairperson (SRCC), Maman S. Sidikou made […]

BRAZZAVILLE, Republic of the Congo, March 3, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- The WHO Regional Office for Africa is intensifying country support to prevent cholera from reaching internally displaced person (IDP) camps along the border of Malawi and Mozambique. Since January 2015, extensive flooding has caused 230 000 IDPs to live in opportune refuge […]

Dubai, UAE, March 3, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- • 14% increase in passenger numbers between 2013 and 2014 in Africa • 100% increase in number of routes in Africa • Schedule increased to 63 flights a week across 12 points in North and East Africa flydubai (http://www.flydubai.com), in its fifth year of operation, today announced its Annual Resu […]

WASHINGTON, March 3, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- Press Statement John Kerry Secretary of State Washington, DC March 2, 2015 The United States congratulates the people of Lesotho for participating peacefully in Lesotho's snap parliamentary election on February 28. The U.S. Embassy deployed 18 American and Basotho staff as observers to six o […]

WASHINGTON, March 3, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- Press Statement John Kerry Secretary of State Washington, DC March 2, 2015 The warring parties in South Sudan must seize the current and final round of negotiations to deliver a sustainable peace. We are well past the point where enough is enough. Leaders must put the interests of their people ab […]

WASHINGTON, March 3, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC March 2, 2015 On February 25 and 26, in Washington, DC, senior officials of the United States and the Republic of Djibouti Governments met to launch the inaugural U.S.-Djibouti Binational Forum, a key outcome of the historic May 5, 2014, White […]

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, March 3, 2015/African Press Organization (APO)/ -- The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today approved a disbursement of SDR 60.74 million (about US$85.45 million) under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) 1 arrangement, as well as an augmentation of access under the ECF arrangement of 50 percent of Sierra Leone […]

It's a club that has recently been embroiled in an unsavory racism controversy but that hasn't deterred a leading Japanese tire manufacturer deciding that Chelsea are the right fit for a shirt sponsorship deal.

Boko Haram, the Islamist extremist group already blamed for numerous horrific attacks in West Africa, posted a graphic video online Monday showing the apparent beheadings of two men who the group said were suspected spies.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified on Tuesday that deep budget cuts could force the Pentagon to put on hold several key weapons development programs, including efforts to build a next-generation fighter and a more efficient aircraft engine.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday the chamber was moving toward debate on a bill that would require President Barack Obama to submit any final nuclear deal with Iran for Congress' approval.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday against accepting a nuclear deal with Iran that would be a "countdown to a potential nuclear nightmare" by a country that "will always be an enemy of America".

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats scrambled on Tuesday to contain the fallout from revelations that their favored 2016 presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, may have violated the spirit of federal records laws by using her personal email for work while secretary of state.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. Senate committee responsible for trade said on Tuesday it is unlikely that a fast-track trade bill will come before lawmakers for consideration before April.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama's advisers would recommend he veto a Senate resolution to overturn recent National Labor Relations Board reforms if the measure were to reach the White House, his administration said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bipartisan talks on a bill to streamline the passage of trade deals through Congress are "stuck" over Democratic demands, the Republican chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance said on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner cleared the way for a vote as soon as Tuesday on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year, dealing a blow to conservative Republicans who wanted to include language blocking President Barack Obama's immigration actions.

MIAMI/HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba is willing to restore diplomatic relations with the United States as soon as the Obama administration declares its intent to take the country off a list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to a senior Cuban official.

Simpler treatment sought – much left to do on neglected tropical diseases

NAIROBI, – Ten years ago, the main treatment for kala azar – a disease that kills up to 40,000 people every year – was a 30-day course of injections, a difficult undertaking both for patients and for the poorly equipped health centres in the remote areas where many cases of the disease occur. Today, combination therapy has cut the treatment period to 17 days in some affected areas, but scientists and health officials continue to work towards developing a simple pill that would replace painful injections and further ease treatment.

For the past 10 years, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) has been involved in research and development (R&D) for neglected diseases around the world, developing six new treatments for malaria, sleeping sickness, kala azar and chagas.

A two-day event was recently held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to take stock of the last decade of health innovations for neglected diseases in Africa. There, more than 400 scientists, government health officials and members of the organizations that make up DNDi agreed that while significant progress has been made in the fight against several neglected diseases, better leadership, coordination and funding will be necessary to eliminate them from the continent.

Better, simpler drugs

“When I first started practising medicine about 20 years ago, I remember losing two patients, both aged about 20, to sleeping sickness. The disease didn’t kill them; the toxicity of the treatment did…It was terrible for their families, and for me,” Wilfried Kalonji Mutombo, a government doctor working in the Democratic Republic of Congo‘s southwestern province of Bandundu, told IRIN. “Now, we treat sleeping sickness with a much less toxic regimen of tablets and intravenous infusions. It’s much less stressful.”

But Mutombo still struggles to get the drugs from the capital, Kinshasa, to Bandundu. “I have to drive 10 hours from Kinshasa, and can only carry drugs for a few patients. Treatment for four people – boxes of pills and intravenous kits – weighs 30kg,” he said. “Once I arrive in Bandundu, I will usually get on a boat for about six or seven hours to get to the health centres that need the drugs, and even then, they may not have trained staff to administer the medicine… It’s hard to maintain trained staff in these remote areas.”

DNDi is currently involved inclinical trials of fexinidazole, a new 10-day, oral-only treatment for sleeping sickness in DRC and Central African Republic, which would significantly simplify the treatment of sleeping sickness.

Speaking at press conference on 5 June, Marcel Tanner, chair of DNDi’s board of directors, said that in order to successfully eliminate neglected diseases, Africa would need to overcome the “fatal triangle” of neglected diseases, neglected people and neglected health systems that continued to hold back progress.

But it is not just health systems that need improvement; poor road networks, inadequate local research capacity, corruption, conflict and the remoteness of many of the areas where these illnesses are found all hinder efforts to control neglected tropical diseases.

Wider than healthcare

“First you have to ensure that you develop the best, most appropriate drugs, but the people affected by these diseases are the poorest of the poor, so we must convince pharmaceutical companies that they will find a market if they invest in R&D for them ,” John Amuasi, head of R&D at Ghana’s Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, told IRIN.

Patent pools, where patent holders license their technology for use by generics manufacturers, and advance market commitments, in which donors commitment to subsidize the purchase of vaccines not yet on the market, have been useful, he said.

“Once you have a cheap drug, you then need a solid, reliable supply chain so people who need the drugs are able to access them wherever they are,” he added.

Innovative ways to deliver drugs, such as the so-called Coca-Cola model – which uses the private distribution mechanisms to improve access to medicines – and the increasing use of mobile phones to report shortages and coordinate deliveries, can help improve supply chain mechanisms.

“Corruption is another problem. Under the Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria [AMFM], some drugs that were meant to be sold for US$1 were found on the market for as much as $10 in countries not involved in the programme,” Amuasi added. “We can improve awareness among communities about what they should be paying for medicines. For instance, with the AMFM, communities need to be aware that drugs bearing the green leaf logo of the AMFM should cost no more than $1.”

Building the capacity of African governments and research facilities will also be important for the fight against neglected tropical diseases. DNDi is working with a number of African governments to create a regional authority for drug regulation. It also supported the creation of the Leishmaniasis East Africa Platform in 2003 and the Human African Trypanosomiasis Platform in 2005 to strengthen research capacity around the two diseases.

“As the African scientific community, we need to strive to build the scientific excellence to take ownership of research for health,” James Macharia, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Health, said at the press conference.

“Even with such integrated strategies, and the political will required to propel them, in addition to the resources required… we must not forget that the right tools for elimination are necessary to really see the elimination of many of these diseases.”